Suicide

Former NFL star Junior Seau was found dead today, and as of this moment, authorities have stated this appears to be a suicide. He was only 43. For those who don’t follow football, Junior Seau was one of those players where very few had a bad thing to say about him – he was well-liked and highly-spoken of. He was extremely talented and is a virtual lock to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall Of Fame. The reactions of former players and coaches, friends and family, are all reactions of shock and surprise.

I’ve only written two “significant” blog posts in the past two months, since reaching my milestone 100^th post, and that’s because I’ve been in a rut during that time period. This story triggered such a strong reaction in me that I needed to instantly start typing. My reaction can be summed up in the following phrase:

Taken for granted.

In my opinion, we in our society take a ton for granted. We take time for granted, and we take others for granted. We take our health for granted, and we take our blessings for granted. We’ve stopped being thankful for what we have, and stopped feeling fortunate for the good things in our lives. But what happens when you truly feel that you have nothing? What happens when you truly feel you have no one? What happens when the things we take for granted are seemingly taken away from us?  

Suicide is a very scary thing to me. I’ve been too close to it – not myself, but a few people I have known over the years have confided in me times where they have contemplated it, times where they were contemplating it, times where they’ve just attempted it, and in one case, where one day they were there, and one day they were not.    

There’s a lot going on in society right now. We’re all pressured, we’re all stressed, we all have days or weeks where all we want to do is escape and get away, to have a break, to not have to deal. I think we all can relate to the constant complaining that goes on in our daily lives, and I’m not trying to state that it’s not warranted. But I think in some ways, with everyone feeling pressured, and everyone in a state of stress, that we’ve become a little desensitized to feeling that this is just a way of life. There is a very thin line between wanting to escape in terms of a vacation, versus wanting to escape life in totality. There is a very thin line between forgetting you have something, and feeling that you have nothing.  And there is, in my opinion, nothing worse than feeling that you have nothing and you have no one.

When we take things for granted, our blessings, our health, the good things, for the most part, that only affects us. BUT…when we take others for granted, that not only affects us, it affects those that we take for granted.  And to someone who feels that they have nothing and no one, sometimes, knowing that they’re not taken for granted may be the difference between feeling completely hopeless, and having a glimmer of hope.

And what scares me is that whenever someone commits suicide, or even attempts it, one of the common reactions is surprise; “I didn’t see it coming.”  I know for myself, and I imagine this is true for most people, when I am feeling down, but going about my day, I try to pretend that everything is OK; I don’t want to call attention to myself directly.  In the act of taking someone for granted, there is an underlying assumption there that says they’re not affected by the lack of little reminders, the small pieces of evidence that says that they matter. We all need to know that we matter, that we belong, that we mean something; it’s a basic human need. And when we’re deprived of that, it can manifest itself in some scary ways.

And I’m not doing suicide enough justice, in trying to explain it in a logical sense, because depression isn’t logical. In one way, depression is a desperate attempt by your brain to deal with pain – emotional pain, mental pain, some level of imbalance. And once you’re gone, there is no way to explain, to trace back, to find real closure to why something so tragic and sad happened.  And it seems like it all can be prevented.

We all owe it to each other to not take each other for granted. We cannot live in a vacuum. We are all interconnected and we all need each other. In my opinion, I firmly believe we are uplifted when we talk and we share; when we teach and we’re taught; when we validate and become validated; when we connect and become connected. If more people looked outward instead of selfishly focusing inward, a lot of the worries have in our society would not be as widespread. We all have a responsibility to each other. Our friendships, our community, our society, and I’ll extend this all the way out to the human race, rely on that responsibility in order to achieve happiness at all those levels.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because I wrote that in my first blog post.

 

Find your friends. Find your loved ones. Tell them that they matter. Make them laugh. Share an old joke. Be there. Lend an ear. Offer a shoulder. Don’t let too much time go by, because our time is limited, and there’s nothing word than waiting too long, waiting too late, to tell someone that they matter. And while you’re at it, find the things in life that matter and be thankful for those things, too.